Content-based storage (sometimes referred to as content-addressable storage or CAS) stores data based on its content, providing inherent data deduplication and facilitating in-line data compression, among other benefits. Some existing content-based storage systems may provide data backup and replication capabilities. For example, snapshots of a given storage volume may be made at arbitrary points in time and replicated to a remote system (e.g., another content-based storage system). Consecutive snapshots may be compared to identify which data in the volume changed and, thus, needs to be transmitted to the remote system. Between any two consecutive snapshots, the storage system may process an arbitrary number of I/O writes for the storage volume.
Some storage systems allow a so-called “recovery point objective” (RPO) period to be defined by a storage administrator or other user. An RPO period may specify the maximum targeted time period in which data might be lost (e.g., due to corruption or disk failure). Existing storage systems may automatically generate and replicate snapshots at some frequency determined by the RPO.